Russ Feingold: “I am delighted that the Finance Committee has included my volunteer mileage reimbursement legislation in the CARE Act…”

“I am delighted that the Finance Committee has included my volunteer mileage reimbursement legislation in the CARE Act, and I want to take this opportunity to thank the Chairman Grassley and the ranking member Baucus for their efforts to include this needed provision. I am also pleased that some troubling provisions have been deleted from this legislation. In particular, I congratulate the sponsors for agreeing to drop title VIII before bringing the bill to the floor. Doing so strengthens this bill, and will greatly speed consideration of the measure. Under current law, when volunteers use their cars for charitable purposes, the volunteers may be reimbursed up to 14 cents per mile for their donated services without triggering a tax consequence for either the organization or the volunteers. If the charitable organization reimburses any more than that, the organization is required to file an information return with the IRS, and the volunteers must include the amount over 14 cents per mile in their taxable income. By contrast, the mileage reimbursement level currently permitted for businesses is 36 cents per mile. At a time when Government is asking volunteers and volunteer organizations to bear a greater burden of delivering essential services, the 14 cents per mile limit is posing a very real hardship on charitable organizations and other nonprofit groups. I have heard from a number of people in Wisconsin on the need to increase this reimbursement limit.”